The Common Origin of the Japanese and Korean Languages

The Korean language belongs to the same family of tongues as the language of Japan; it is in fact a branch of Japanese, like the native language of the Loo-choo Isles. The relation may be compared to that existing between the German, and Dutch languages, both being branches of the same Teutonic tree, or between the French and another Romance language, Spanish. This is by no means a new discovery; scholars, both foreign and Japanese have frequently manifested the same opinion and no one who has studied Old Japanese can fail to arrive at the same conclusion.

That intercourse was held between the people of Japan and Korea in the earliest times is evident from the account of Prince Susa-no-wo’s advent at Sosimori in the Korean province of Silla, the allusion to a number of Korean temples in our Engishiki and Fudoki, and the presence of the surname of Shiragi in the Shinsen-shojiroku.